Europe Features
Estonia on guard for more cyber attacks
By DPA
Apr 26, 2008, 13:54 GMT

Tallinn - The small Baltic nation of Estonia is on guard for more internet attacks that paralysed the work of the government last year.

Dubbed the world's first cyber war, last year's attacks on Estonian internet servers - blamed on Russian hackers - propelled the issue of cyber defence to the forefront of the international community. And computer-savvy Estonia found itself in a leadership position.

'The attention given to us from the international community was a little bit unexpected for us also,' Mihkel Tammet, the jovial, bearded head of communications and IT at the Estonian Ministry of Defence, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

'We hit the right spot in this respect and are naturally able to raise very painful and very important questions.'

The attention came after deliberate cyber attacks paralysed networks of the Estonian government, police, ministries, banks and media.

In a country where government meetings routinely use internet- based documents, and a reported 97 per cent of banking transactions are carried out online, the effects could have been catastrophic.

Estonia became the test case for other nations, including Sweden, who aim to protect their cyber space from malicious attacks.

One year since the attacks, the Baltic nation is not losing sleep over from their origin.

'Today we do not pay attention or use our resources to investigate who was behind those attacks because if you have a very good defence then it doesn't matter who will attack you. We put all our resources on preparedness,' Tammet said.

'In the future we'll have to deal with all kinds of threats from all kinds of directions.'

That would include attacks originating within Estonia itself.

Estonian authorities arrested a 20-year-old Estonian, Dmitri Galushkevich, in relation to last year's attacks. He has been fined. The Russian government denied any involvement in the cyber attacks.

And having weathered the storm, Estonia, which joined NATO in 2004 and whose total professional defence establishment runs to 2,300 people, has found itself lecturing NATO's biggest players on the harsh realities of the cyber age.

At the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, in April, the alliance acknowledged the growing threat that this form of third-millennium warfare poses.

NATO leaders for the first time formally committed to 'strengthening key alliance information systems' and rush to each other's defence in case of a cyber attack.

Estonia's firewalls withstood the 2007 attack and its centre for cyber defence in Tallinn - located near the new spot for the Soviet- era monument - is now much admired around the world.

A top-secret military base, Estonia's centre for cyber-defence looks remarkably like a genteel university. Its renovated exterior reflects the rare Nordic sunlight, near a military cemetery where the Estonian government relocated the Soviet-era monument. It angered some of Estonia's Russian population, causing riots. It also led to the first cyber war on the Estonian servers.

On May 14, several NATO allies and Estonia are to set up a Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn.

While cyber attacks may or may not take place this year, Estonia said it will be ready.